Falcon gets busy, and the Delta 2 rocket comes out of retirement.

A lot of speculation takes place concerning what SpaceX and United Launch Alliance charge for all the various services surrounding the launch of a spacecraft. An announcement late Monday by NASA provides some more information for those who are trying to nail down the costs.

NASA announced four Earth Science satellite launch awards that included a first NASA satellite launch for the SpaceX Falcon 9 and three new launches for ULA's venerable Delta 2. The SpaceX contract for launch and services is worth $82M; the ULA contract will be $402M for all three satellites. All four rockets will launch into polar orbits from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the coast of California.

SpaceX gets even busier

SpaceX picks up the $82M launch services contract for the Jason-3 mission. Jason-3, a NOAA satellite designed to make highly accurate measurements of ocean surface height, follows Jason-1 and 2. NASA says the mission applications include "ocean and weather forecasting, ocean wave modeling, hurricane intensification prediction, seasonal forecasting, El Nino and La Nina forecasting, and climate research." NASA and the French Space Agency have collaborated on a series of satellites to gain more accurate measurements of what the world's oceans are doing since 1992.

SpaceX currently has at least nine launches scheduled for 2014, not counting multiple launches for ORBCOMM (a satellite data provider), so Jason-3 will be at least the tenth, right at the end of the year. Over the next year and a half, the company hopes to get its flight rate from the current rate of once every couple of years to something better than once a month. The Falcon 9 was designed for high flight rates, but a great deal of transitional work must take place at SpaceX to achieve that kind of regularity.

NASA pulls the Delta 2 rocket out of retirement

United Launch Alliance, the joint endeavour between Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, has already achieved that regularity. Their 2012 manifest includes nine launches, and they're coming off a stretch of monthly launches. All of them were successful.

ULA's Delta 2, arguably the most successful American rocket ever built, currently has 96 successful launches in a row; should all go well with these three, it will be up to 99. The old rocket is currently out of production, but ULA has pieces for two more remaining, so there's a chance of bringing the record up to 101, even if the launch system never goes back into production. After the Air Force stopped using Delta 2 a few years ago for cost reasons, NASA elected to stop using the launcher as well. In 2009 and 2011, however, NASA lost two Earth Sciences satellites in launch failures of the Orbital Sciences Taurus rocket, and the agency decided the reliability of the Delta 2 was worth the high cost.

One of the Delta 2 launches will be the OCO-2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2), a replacement for NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which died an ugly and premature death in a launch mishap in early 2009. It will launch in July of 2014. It's meant to make high-resolution measurements of the Earth's carbon dioxide sources and sinks in attempt to further improve JPL's atmospheric CO2 model.

JPL's SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) Earth observation satellite will go up in October of 2014 aboard a Delta 2. From a long-term scientific point of view, the satellite will gather data to help tie together the Earth's water, energy, and carbon cycles by providing global measurements of soil in its freeze-thaw state. It will also help JPL improve its model of forest carbon absorption and output. In the immediate term it will improve NASA's flood prediction and drought monitoring capabilities.

The Joint Polar Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) spacecraft is meant to provide better data for weather monitoring and prediction. JPSS-1 will launch in November 2016, aboard a Delta II rocket from Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. That date is ahead of the original 2017 launch date by a few months.

The $402M worth of the three ULA launches compared to the $82M of the SpaceX agreement yields a loose comparison regarding the cost difference for SpaceX versus ULA launches, since ULA does not release price information. Unfortunately, the figure is for Delta 2 launches, which were already terminated once because of their costs, so the figures may not provide a great window into current pricing.

Promoted Comments

Probably availability (Space X has a packed launch schedule) and capacity; looks like Delta II's maximum capacity to LEO is 6,100kg (13,440lb) while Falcon 9 is 10,450kg (23,000lb), so Falcon 9 may be too big/too small for the other payloads.

18 Reader Comments

So if SpaceX can launch satellites, and I'm assuming it's thought they'll be more reliable than the Orbital Sciences Taurus rocket, why pull the Delta 2 out of retirement? Weight of the satellites? Orbit height?

Just a quick note, the Trident-II SLBM has actually had 135 consecutive successful test-flights in a row. While they're only test-flights, I think we're all happy none of them were the real deal. Still, that's a pretty impressive launch record, especially for something you have to launch out of the water.

So if SpaceX can launch satellites, and I'm assuming it's thought they'll be more reliable than the Orbital Sciences Taurus rocket, why pull the Delta 2 out of retirement? Weight of the satellites? Orbit height?

Probably availability (Space X has a packed launch schedule) and capacity; looks like Delta II's maximum capacity to LEO is 6,100kg (13,440lb) while Falcon 9 is 10,450kg (23,000lb), so Falcon 9 may be too big/too small for the other payloads.

It's not like this is restarting a full scale production line for the Delta IIs. It's using up the parts that were still lingering around for 5 rockets that haven't been completed. Also see the reason for going Delta II NASA is looking for reliability.

ULA’s Delta 2 was once the go-to medium-lift vehicle for NASA and the Air Force. The Air Force, which footed the bill for most of the rocket’s support costs, stopped using Delta 2 in 2009. NASA subsequently said it could not absorb those costs and also decided to stop using Delta 2, which is no longer in production.

ULA has parts for five Delta 2 rockets left in its inventory. The rocket last flew in October, when it launched NASA's Suomi NPP weather and climate satellite from Vandenberg.

NASA Earth Science officials have said that they are willing to pay a premium price for launch reliability to avoid losing any more payloads. Back-to-back failures of Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Taurus XL rocket in 2009 and 2011 doomed two Earth science satellites at a cost of about $1 billion to the agency, NASA Earth Science Director Michael Freilich said July 10.

Another reason to hedge against SpaceX is that they haven't yet flown a payload fairing on the Falcon 9. Until they demonstrate their new 5m fairing, NASA may only be comfortable risking a single spacecraft. The first post mentioned the Taurus launch vehicle, which has had two devastating payload fairing failures in which NASA lost valuable earth science spacecraft with promising missions (Glory and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory) . Once SpaceX fleshes out their flight history with a few successful fairing launches, the risks drop substantially.

Were there any remarks on the weight of each of those payloads? I know the Falcon 9 can lift more, but normally the cost for these things is per kilogram of payload weight. Despite not having actual pricing information, you can get a pretty decent estimate based on that, and the weights of the satellites should be publicly available in some for since it's done by NASA. The fact that the Falcon 9 is already below the cost of the "proven" platform looks extremely good for Space X.

Assuming all else equal, the Delta 2 runs around 130 million per launch, where the Falcon 9 is only at 82. Ouch.

Probably availability (Space X has a packed launch schedule) and capacity; looks like Delta II's maximum capacity to LEO is 6,100kg (13,440lb) while Falcon 9 is 10,450kg (23,000lb), so Falcon 9 may be too big/too small for the other payloads.

Capacity is a non-issue in that direction in two ways:

1) If the fuel capacity was set (solid booster with pre-designated fuel capacity), they would just need to underburn the fuel - but if it's still less expensive it would make more sense.

2) However, I believe Falcon 9 uses RP-1 kerosene, so I imagine it could be fuel-loaded based on capacity, making this a further non-issue.

Probably availability (Space X has a packed launch schedule) and capacity; looks like Delta II's maximum capacity to LEO is 6,100kg (13,440lb) while Falcon 9 is 10,450kg (23,000lb), so Falcon 9 may be too big/too small for the other payloads.

Capacity is a non-issue in that direction in two ways:

1) If the fuel capacity was set (solid booster with pre-designated fuel capacity), they would just need to underburn the fuel - but if it's still less expensive it would make more sense.

2) However, I believe Falcon 9 uses RP-1 kerosene, so I imagine it could be fuel-loaded based on capacity, making this a further non-issue.

Delta II uses a combination of RP-1/liquid oxygen and solid boosters for the first stage and a hypergolic liquid fuel second stage. SpaceX uses a RP-1/liquid oxygen first and second stage. Both rockets second stages are restartable. For a lighter launch they wouldn't under fuel the rocket, they would just end the second stage burn sooner for less velocity to place it in the desired orbit, typically with a follow on burn that would circulize the orbit. It's pretty straightforward, and by having a fully fueled stage, if something underperforms, they can simply burn the stage longer if need be. Fuel is cheap.

It'll be nice to see how well SpaceX does in filling the shoes of the Delta II, if they can keep its reliability in line with Delta at the much lower prices it should help NASA budgets for alot of those type of launches. ULA doesn't really have a good replacement for Delta II as Atlas V and Delta IV cost quite a bit more, but alot of the science sats don't need a rocket with that much payload. SpaceX Falcon 9 gives them payload in Atlas V range for below Delta II prices, even compared to the prices when the Air Force was helping to prop it up. Its part of why Orbital is building its Antares rocket, so they can make sure the small sats they build will have a ride. I don't think anyone is jumping at being the next customer on a Taurus XL anytime soon.

I'd be surprised if the cost of fuelling Falcon 9 with RP-1 was even 1% of the total cost of flying the rocket so under fuelling it probably isn't worth the additional risk of not keeping that option of having spare delta-V.

I'd be surprised if the cost of fuelling Falcon 9 with RP-1 was even 1% of the total cost of flying the rocket so under fuelling it probably isn't worth the additional risk of not keeping that option of having spare delta-V.

According to Elon Musk it runs about $200k to fuel a Falcon 9, thus his push to reuse, whether he'll achieve remains to be seen, but yep, fuel is cheap.

Is there any news of when the Glory Mishap Investigation Board will release its findings?

The Glory satellite did not reach orbit in March 2011 due to a payload fairing separation failue, as did OCO in February 2009 due to a payload fairing separation failure as well. The OCO mishap report was quite proprietary in nature and left me with a strange feeling that what was not being said was more important than what was being said. The significant time between the Glory failure and now, with no Glory mishap report in sight, reinforces my belief that there's more to the story than what is likely to be reported.

Two satellites, both dealing with climate change, failed to reach orbit due to the same cause: payload fairing separation, or lack thereof actually. Each payload fairing separation mechanism was powered by different physics: OCO was hot-gas and Glory was cold-gas. The cold-gas system had worked successfully on three prior Minotaur launches before its failure on the Glory launch. Oddly enough, one thing was common between both failed launches and different physics: each required software to tell the mechanisms when to fire.

It leads to speculation that perhaps a set of software instructions reported that the mechanism had been told to fire when in reality the instruction never was sent or didn't make it to the mechanism in question. Purposeful intent, manifested in software, to frustrate the launching of two climate change satellites? Or only a software bug, innocent but ultimately fatal, that just happened to materialize on the launching of two climate change satellites?

Physics or software? I guess we won't know until the Glory Mishap Investigation Board's report is published.

Quite possible that it's a Luddite or Tea-Sipper that torpedoed the OCO and Glory satellites, but that being said it's still $700,000,000, plus or minus $25,000,000, that now sits at the bottom of the ocean near Antartica. Whether it be nefarious intent or unintentional slip-up (twice?), the last mission (Glory) had a bunch more telemetry points attached to it just because of OCO's failure. If you watch the video of the news conference held the next day, one of the techies on the panel stipulated that there was a lot more telemetry on the Glory flight that there was on the OCO flight. In theory, it should have made it easier to discern the cause(s) of Glory's failure.

That's why the long period of time between the "mishap" and the non-appearance of the report is grating...unless...

I'd be surprised if the cost of fuelling Falcon 9 with RP-1 was even 1% of the total cost of flying the rocket so under fuelling it probably isn't worth the additional risk of not keeping that option of having spare delta-V.

According to Elon Musk it runs about $200k to fuel a Falcon 9, thus his push to reuse, whether he'll achieve remains to be seen, but yep, fuel is cheap.

I think I have my dense-cap on today, so forgive me, but are you suggesting vehicle/engine re-use is due to fuel costs?? Or am I misinterpreting your statement?